Ever wondered what doomthings uses to do the things doomthings does? Probably not, but we’re going to tell you anyway. Via Amazon, here’s a bunch of stuff we use to do the things we does. We have these things and actually use them. Check it out in the sidebar. Yeah, right there; on the left; it says “Doomthings Uses These”; yeah; click it! See all the things!

Need a review that’s not one of the crazies that posts on Amazon? Just ask. We’ve got that.

Sooooo, I like hot chocolate. More recently, I’ve started making it from scratch (and by scratch, I mean the recipe on the side of the Hershey’s unsweetened cocoa powder box), instead of buying packets, which are way too sugary for me. (As a side note, the Starbucks hot chocolate packets are pretty good). The original single-serving recipe calls for 2 tbsp of sugar. It’s not bad, I love it! However, this morning, I decided to try honey. Mostly because we have lots and I don’t want it to harden and be unusable (it’s happened before!), but also because I’ve been wanted to experiment with honey as a sugar substitute.

If I’m being totally honest, I originally thought maybe honey had healthier attributes than sugar, which was my initial drive for the substitution. After lots of research, I found that it won’t make much of a difference, and if it does, it will be very slight. If you want to get picky, yes, it’s sweeter than sugar and while teaspoon-for-teaspoon honey has more calories, the thinking is that you’ll use less, perhaps in the long-run lowering your calorie intake from sweeteners. I think this is probably crap for most people (people like them their sweets!), so I really think taste should be the driving factor. Don’t take my word for it, check out both sides of the honey versus sugar argument and decide for yourself. I know I’m not being any healthier and I want a different taste. I’m happy with that.

Ingredients (adapted from Hershey’s Unsweetened Cocoa Powder box):

2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder (dutch processed or other, contrary to popular belief, it doesn’t really make a difference)

1 cup milk

1 tbsp honey

dash salt

splash vanilla

Directions

Combine cocoa powder and salt in a mug.

Microwave milk until desired temperature is reached. (2 minutes works for me)

Add vanilla and honey to milk, stirring until dissolved.

Add milk mixture to mug and stir until dissolved.

The sugar version of this tastes good of course, but the honey version added just a hint of extra flavor. I’ll be doing this from now on!

I mean, most of us do at one point or another. I kept wanting to post about the fun sandwiches I’ve made since discovering that there is more than just “meat and cheese” sandwiches, but I pretty much make a toasted sandwich every day for lunch and that’s a lot of time to take a picture of every layer. Ugh. I’m just that lazy. However, there is a solution to this! A new page! Click on “Foodage” and you will find a page dedicated to things like sandwich recipes, where it’s much easier to list the “layers” of the sandwich and a picture wouldn’t do the taste much justice anyway. Right now, there’s only one sandwich on there, but I expect varieties of other similar items (i.e. quesadillas, pita “sandwiches”, wraps, etc.) will appear occasionally. They will be things that are AWESOME but that really don’t need their own post. Keep checking back for fun and interesting ways to keep you (mostly lunch) dishes fresh and exciting!! – 20 laziness

This started from a strong desire for spring to be here and winter to get lost. I kept having daydreams of sometime last summer, sitting on my mother-in-law’s deck, drinking crisp white wine with a bunch of fruit I had unceremoniously dumped into it. It was delicious. That day we came up with a ton of “summer sangria” ideas with different types of wine and fruit combinations. To be fair, they were probably all very similar, but it didn’t stop us from coming up with more ways to drink white wine.

I finally got sick of winter (which is still here as I type; dumb March) and grabbed the cheapest bottle of moscato I could find from my grocery store. I wanted strawberries in my sangria after having re-introducing myself to them with the Turkey Strawberry Sandwich with Brie, plus there were plenty sitting in my refrigerator, so it was fortunate that the Arbor Mist Moscato I picked up was “strawberry-mango”. This combination wouldhave made the sangria really sweet, so I toned down the sweetness by adding lemons and oranges. A while back I had found a similar recipe that included a strawberry syrup from Serious Eats via Pinterest.

Make strawberry syrup (boil together 1 cup sliced strawberries, 1 cup water, 1/2 cup sugar until sugar is dissolved and strawberries are near white, strain out solids, store in fridge for up to 1 week sealed).

Place sliced fruits in pitcher.

Add moscato.

Add strawberry syrup and citrone.

Refridgerate until chilled, or serve immediately if moscato is already chilled.

This sangria was to be used at a party the next day, so I chilled it overnight and used a torus-shaped jello mold to make an ice ring to help keep it chilled. Contrary to popular belief, alcohol does freeze, although not as well as water, and lasted about halfway through the party, which kept the sangria cold the whole time. I used some extra strawberry syrup and overflow sangria mix for the ice ring and added even more strawberries.

It was a little bit too sweet, so I think next time I will use a dryer sparkling wine. Limes could also make this interesting. Of course, so could a variety of other fruits. Try out your own recipe and let me know how it goes! Peaches, mangos, and pears, Oh My! What a terrible attempt at a play on words. -5 charisma.